Downloaded video: audio and video are out of sync

[LS181]

Hello Dropbox Community, 

I was having no problem download videos to my computer and playing them back on my computer until a few days ago.  Now downloaded videos playback with audio and video out of sync, the audio is a few seconds ahead of the video.  I saw a suggestion to turn off browser extensions and empty the browser cache.  I tried that, no luck.   Does anyone have suggestions?  Thanks.

[Megan]

Hi @LS181, welcome to our Community! 

Do you notice this type of behavior with all of your videos, or just some of them? 

When you try to preview them online, do you notice the same lagging or do they preview without an issue? 

Let me know, and we'll take it from there!

[LS181]

Hello Megan, 

When I preview the video on dropbox, the audio and video are in sync.  

The last few days, when I download a video onto my computer, and then play back the video on the computer,  the audio plays back a few seconds ahead of the video.  I tried downloading 8 different videos of different sizes, 683 MB to over 2 GB.  The playback on my computer was out of sync with all of the videos.   I tried doing a computer scan for software updates, virus scans, I tried using a different browser for download, I tried clearing the browser cache and turning off extensions. None of these things worked.  These videos are part of a course I'm taking.  The teacher uploaded videos to her dropbox account over the last few months.  Prior to this week, the videos I downloaded played back on my computer with audio and video in sync.   thanks, 

[Megan]

Hi @LS181, do you have a different player that you can use, in order to test if this is a player issue or not? 

You can try downloading an example file on your mobile, to test this out. 

[LS181 · Accepted solution]

Hi Megan, 

I was using the Windows media player.  I just downloaded VLC player and tried out one of the videos which had played sound and video out of sync on the Windows media player.  Thankfully, the sound and video were in sync using the VLC player.  So, thank you for suggesting using another media player.  I just don't understand why the earlier downloads play fine on Windows player and the later ones don't.... 

[Walter]

Hey @LS181 - sorry to jump in here, but I just wanted to mention that the VLC player usually includes more codecs than Windows Media Player; that's probably why you were able to view those files normally there and not on WMP. 

In any case, I'm glad to see it's sorted now and please let us know if you have anything else to ask. 

[LS181]

Thank you for the explanation and support, Walter.  

[williamaran]

Why are some videos playing with audio and video out of sync on Windows Media Player, while others play fine, and how can I ensure consistent playback quality across all downloads?

[Megan]

Hey @williamaran, let's jump right into this! 

Does this happen when you try to preview the files online too, or only when you view these files locally? 

Also, do you notice this with all of your files, or only some of them? 

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!